So far 2011 has been a heckuva year. I’m really sorry if my tweets and facebook status updates have been somber and melancholic as of late, things have not been ideal in my personal life. Katy has been dealing with some undefined illness (if you follow me on twitter or are friends with me on facebook, I’ll spare you the rehash– needless to say it’s been troubling, frustrating, and unresolved), our 2 month old puppy got sick, and I have been struggling with trying to get registered for classes. At this point, it looks like I’m going to have to make some student loan payments due to the ineptitude of ITT (their inability to successfully mail a transcript) and the  laziness of Franklin (their seeming lack of desire to register a new student). Money is always troublesome. There is never enough of it when you need some, and when you have a surplus it always seems to disappear.

There are some positive notes in all of this. Katy and I got engaged, and will probably marry this year, so it appears 2011 will have some bright spots. We are discussing opening a restaurant, although it will likely be several years down the line. My friend Robert self-published a novel on Amazon (Cagey and 2 others, I highly recommend it – http://t.co/dQXknYd), which has made me think about getting back to the story that I was working on years ago. I had over 60 pages written on an old laptop, when the hard drive died and I was unable to retrieve any of the data. It was a lesson on backups. I think that I will begin working on it again. I enjoy my job and the people I work with, which is a welcome change for me. My primary resolution for 2011 is to not take things so seriously, to realize that not every roadblock is a wall (or the end of the world), and to take solace in the people and things I have in my life that bring me joy.

I also have begun to be more vocal about my beliefs (or, more specifically, my lack of beliefs). I have been an atheist since the age of 18, after spending the better part of my youth as a very active evangelical christian. While my de-conversion experience was not a simple process, or an easy one, I became a fairly staunch atheist and spent a good part of my early 20s active with a few humanist and free-thinker groups. As I entered in to my mid-20s, I began to back off from being as outspoken and confrontational, even going so far as to label myself as agnostic to avoid the negative associations most people think of when they hear the word “atheist”. No more. I am an atheist. My jury is not out, I do not believe it is unknowable. I believe that the concept of god put forth by the christian faith (and others, but let’s deal specifically with that since it’s the most common belief in western society) is something that would manifest in an overwhelming abundance of evidence if it were true, and since no such evidence exists a rational person must come to the conclusion that no such god exists, either. I reject all gods as superstition, and belief in them as counter-productive to both reason and societal progress. As a direct consequence of my reacquired voice, I have recently lost a few friends (and will probably lose more), but I would rather by honest with myself and the world than to hide behind a ruse for the sake of not offending the delicate sensibilities of others. If you are a believer of any religion, I am still quite happy to count you as a friend, but I reserve the right to be just as vocal about my lack of belief as you are about your beliefs in the supernatural. I will be using this blog as a platform to discuss my thoughts on this subject more in the future, and plan on writing a post soon that describes the process of and events leading up to my departure from evangelical christianity.

I think this is something that has been stewing within me for awhile. I have felt intellectually restless, and I think that between writing, planning for the restaurant, being more vocal about my thoughts on religion, and thoughts for subversive political protests (in the vein of carlosmiller.com and copblock.org style exposing of government corruption, starting at a local level), I have finally begun to feel some connection and engagement again with the world around me. Please note that the title of this post is not a typo– I have felt bored for the last several years on many levels (romantic relationships, friendships, and career aside), and I think that this will be the year that I begin to take the appropriate steps to grease the gears in my head that have started to rust.

Thanks for reading.